Cognitive Turn of CA

The Cognitive Turn of Contrastive Analysis:Empirical Evidence

Irit KupferbergLevinsky College of Education, English Department, Israel

L2 learners often notice input which is frequent, functional and perceptually salient.Frequency, functionality and salience can be induced by instruction. One possiblesource of salience is contrast-dependent teacher-induced salience which is defined viacontrastive analysis. In an experiment conducted with 137 intermediate FL learners,Kupferberg and Olshtain (1996a) showed that contrastive metalinguistic input (CMI)facilitated the acquisition of difficult target structures. The present study partiallyreplicates this experiment to test the effect of CMI on the acquisition of grammaticalaspect in English by 57 English teachers and student teachers, advanced L2 learners,who were able to recognise the structure, but avoided production. The results of thetwo experiments are interpreted within a cognitive framework of L2 acquisition as anindication that the provision of CMI may enhance the production levels of difficulttarget structures.

Recent L2 studies foreground the centrality of attention and noticing in L2 acqui-sition, and provide empirical evidence that explicit instruction may engage thelearners’ attention and make them notice input features (Schmidt, 1990).Learners notice L2 features, or are induced to notice them, by instruction indifferent learning conditions (Robinson, 1997) when they comprehend andproduce the target language.

One source of teacher-induced salience which has recently come to the fore iscontrast-dependent salience (James, 1996b, 1998). Kupferberg and Olshtain(1996a) tested the effect of such salience in an experiment with 137 intermediateforeign-language learners, and showed that instruction which induces structuraland functional metalinguistic salience on the basis of contrastive analysis (CA)(Lado, 1957) of the learner’s L1 and L2, facilitates the acquisition of difficult L2forms. The study re-evaluated CA in cognitive terms compatible with recentdevelopments in L2 acquisition. The present study partially replicatesKupferberg and Olshtain’s study (I996a) to test the effect of contrastivemetalinguistic input (CMI) on the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Englishby advanced L2 learners.

A Cognitive Framework for Contrastive Linguistic InputAttention, a central concept in most cognitive information-processing models,

has been recently defined in L2 studies (de Graaff, 1997; Robinson, 1995;Schmidt, 1994a, 1994b; Tomlin & Villa, 1994). Attention enables the learner toselect information and activate it before it is stored in long-term memory.Robinson (1995) reviews current theory and research into the nature of the inter-face between attention and memory during information processing, and definesthe terms ‘noticing’, ‘attention’ and ‘memory’ in L2 acquisition.

The noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990) establishes a causal relation between

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linguistic input and subsequent L2 acquisition. Schmidt defines noticing asattending to specific input features. Input which is attended to and noticedbecomes intake. Robinson (1995, 1997) provides evidence that noticing enhancesthe subsequent encoding of the ‘noticed input’ in long-term memory, and rede-fines noticing as detection and rehearsal, or activation, in short-term memoryprior to encoding in long-term memory and following the allocation of attention.Robinson also emphasises that ‘noticing is not sufficient for L2 acquisition tooccur, and what is noticed may be rehearsed in short-term memory only tempo-rarily, then subsequently lost’ (Robinson, 1997: 76).

Krashen (1981, 1982, 1985, 1994) does not view noticing as conducive to L2acquisition. He claims that L2 acquisition is implicit, and results in implicitlyacquired knowledge which can be used in natural performance. The consciousprocess of noticing, associated with explicit learning, results in explicitly learnedknowledge, which cannot be used in natural performance. Robinson (1997)provides empirical evidence that supports the noticing hypothesis and countersKrashen’s dual system model.

Input enhancement, or ‘induced input salience’ (Sharwood Smith, 1993) wasproposed as a safer alternative to the polysemous construct ‘consciousness rais-ing’ (Schmidt, 1994b). Induced input salience comprises teacher- or text-book-induced linguistic input which can be manipulated by instruction. Recentstudies show that explicit instruction which involves input enhancement oftenengages the learners’ attention in both comprehension (Doughty, 1991; Ellis,1995; Kupferberg & Olshtain, 1996a; VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993; Lightbown,1998) and production (Swain & Lapkin, 1995) based tasks. Swain and Lapkinemphasise that production tasks are more successful in engaging advancedlearners’ attention and effecting noticing in comparison with comprehensiontasks.

However, this raises further complications,as the definition of L2 comprehen-sion and production is difficult because these processes constantly interact witheach other when learners attempt to communicate in L2 (Ringbom, 1992). Inaddition, the two processes are influenced by cognitive and affectivelearner-dependent (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1992, 1993;Robinson, 1995,1997), andenvironment-dependent (Ellis, 1994; Ringbom, 1992) factors.

Laufer and Eliasson (1993) argue that noticing is also the key to explaininglimited production, or complete avoidance (Schachter, 1974) (i.e. a set of strate-gies used by L2 learners to overcome communication difficulties). Like Schachterthey argue that avoidance should be distinguished from ignorance. However, inorder to establish that a learner avoids using an L2 form, they claim, one has toestablish first that this form has been noticed. If this criterion is not met, it meansthat the learner simply does not know the target language form, and it is a case ofignorance rather than avoidance.

Laufer and Eliasson do not define clearly what acquisition means, nor howproduction and comprehension are related. Kupferberg (1996) studies theconnection between recognition and production levels of ‘successful and unsuc-cessful recognizers’, and defines success as the ability to recognise all the forms.The term recognition rather than comprehension indicates that participants wererequested to identify morphological and syntactic constructions presented asdiscrete items in a list to ensure maximum control over the measured variables.

The Cognitive Turn of Contrastive Analysis 211

The results show that ‘successful recognizers’ produced more target forms than‘unsuccessful ones’, and therefore Kupferberg tentatively concludes that thedefinition and measurement of avoidance, or limited production, should incor-porate the recognition level of the learner.

One source of teacher-induced salience associated with noticing is contrastivemetalinguistic input (CMI) which is defined by means of contrastive analysis(James, 1996a, b, 1998). CMI can be defined as teacher-induced salience whichforegrounds differences between the learner’s L1 and L2 which have been estab-lished as areas of difficulty in studies independent of CA (Kupferberg &Olshtain, 1996a). Contrastive analysis (Lado, 1957) of the structure of twolanguages is a technique which was said to enable one to predict problemsencountered or to explain errors made by L2 learners.

CA was criticised on empirical, theoretical and pedagogical grounds (Ellis,1994; James, 1980). The attack on CA focused on its predictive and explanatoryclaims and its behaviouristic-structuralistic rationale. James (1996b) redefinesCA in cognitive terms as a process which takes place ‘when two languages comeinto contact in the bilingual brain’ (James, 1996b: 143). This process often resultsin metalinguistic generalisations about the target language, some of which maybe erroneous.

Several empirical studies show that explicit instruction which induces inputsalience, and engages the learner’s attention in comprehension-based tasks(Ellis, 1995) is beneficial to grammar learning (Doughty, 1991; Kupferberg, 1995;VanPatten & Cadierno, 1993). Kupferberg and Olshtain (1996a) provide empir-ical evidence that metalinguistic contrastive input (CMI) focusing attention onimportant differences between the two languages via recognition tasks facilitatesintermediate learners’ grammar acquisition in comparison with instructionwhich lacks this focus, and consists of inductive presentation and communica-tive tasks.

In an experiment with 137 participants, Kupferberg and Olshtain (1996a)assigned a new role to CMI which is compatible with recent developments in L2grammar acquisition research. In this study, CA was used for the definition ofsalient input which may assist L2 learners. CA conducted between the targetstructures in Hebrew and English (Kupferberg, 1995) resulted in the definition ofstructuraland functional CMI. CMI comprised statements which clearly summa-rised L1–L2 differences and similarities, and focused on the form and function oftwo difficult constructions. Difficulty was defined on the basis of previousstudies independent of CA.

Data collection was conducted via controlled recognition and productiontasks. Recognition and production tasks measured the participants’ ability toidentify and use the functions of the target structures (i.e. compound nouns andrelative clauses) in naming and definition tasks, respectively (Biber, 1988).

The results of Kupferberg and Olshtain (1996a) support two independenttheoretical claims about L2 acquisition. They support Selinker’s claim (1992) thatL2 learners often conduct a cognitive inter-lingual comparison, or some sort ofCA between the linguistic form they have noticed in the input, and knowledge oftheir native language. Therefore, instruction which provides CMI may assist thelearner in conducting an L1–L2 comparison, and arriving at the correct L2 gener-alisation. Furthermore, the study ‘locates’ this cognitive comparison in the

212 Language Awareness

‘rehearsal’ or activation of input in short-term memory (Robinson, 1995), whichtakes place after the input was detected by the learner and before it is stored inlong-term memory.

Following Selinker (1992) and Robinson (1995), Kupferberg and Olshtain(1996a) define an L1–L2 comparison within a model of attention and memory inL2 acquisition as ‘a conceptually-driven activity conducted in short-termmemory between the specific input to which the learners are exposed and theknowledge (including L1 knowledge) stored in their long-term memory’.

The present study partially replicates the former by testing the effect of CMIon the acquisition of aspect in English by advanced learners, English teachersand student teachers, native speakers of Hebrew, who were able to comprehendthe form before the experiment, but avoided production. It also remedies a limi-tation of the former study (i.e. the use of highly controlled measurement tasks,such as recognition and production of discrete decontextualised items) by usingnarrative tasks which constitute a more natural and appropriate context for theproduction of aspect markers than discrete-item tasks.

Temporality in Personal StoriesPersonal stories show that we do not record reality, but rather construct our

own versions of it. Thus when teachers tell professional stories, they imposeorder on the unpredictable classroom experience (Kagan, 1992). Telling stories isalso conducive to professional development (Ben Peretz, 1995; Elbaz, 1983).Recent studies provide evidence showing how stories are reconstructed asgeneralised professional statements and organising metaphors in spoken andwritten narrative discourse (Kupferberg & Green, 1998; Kupferberg & Olshtain,1996b, 1998; Olshtain & Kupferberg, 1998).

Polanyi (1989) defines personal stories as ‘specific, affirmative past timereports about a series of events at specific unique moments in a unique past timeworld’. The temporal dimension of personal stories is expressed by tense andaspect, but each is concerned with time in different ways. Tense foregroundsmain-line events, whereas aspect constitutes commentary background (Berman& Slobin, 1994).

Tense and aspect are expressed by grammatical marking of the verb (e.g.affixes, vowel alternation, and auxiliaries), and by lexical items (e.g. verbs,adverbials, adjectives) (Comrie, 1976). Past and present tenses are typicalfeatures of personal stories in English and Hebrew (Berman & Slobin, 1994) andother tense languages. These tenses grammaticalise ‘realis’, or the discourse ofpast events, whereas the future tense, conditionals and negative forms pertain to‘irrealis’, or the discourse of the unreal and hypothetical (Fleischman, 1990).Narrators use the past tense when specific past events are told, and they oftenshift from past to present to create a dramatic effect (Georgakopoulou, 1994).

Grammatical and lexical aspect mark temporal background in personalstories (Berman & Slobin, 1994). English has grammatical and lexical aspect.There are two grammatical aspect constructions in English: perfect and progres-sive. Both take the form of an auxiliary combined with the main verb. Perfectaspect indicates anteriority. It ‘marks one event as having occurred prior toanother, for which it constitutes a temporally backgrounded event, and so


departs from the normal sequence of the unfolding plot’ (Berman & Slobin,1994: 142). Adult Americans often use simple past tense in many contextswhere British speakers require a perfect form, and in both varieties past perfectforms occur in written narratives (Berman & Slobin, 1994; Biber, 1988). Lexicalmarking of aspect in English is achieved by means of particles, verbs andadverbials.

The personal story in Example 1 was written by a native speaker of AmericanEnglish. It illustrates the temporal dimensions (i.e. tense and grammaticalaspect) of personal stories in English. The story was divided into main andsubordinate clauses (Quirk et al., 1985), and perfect aspect clauses are under-lined.

Example 1 Temporal dimensions of a personal story in English

1. This happened to me last Friday on the way to the gym.2. I was walking slowly3. thinking about a problem4. that had recently happened at work.5. All of a sudden, a woman on the street asked6. me to help7. her put on her earrings.8. This was strange9. because no one had ever asked10. me to do that before.11. I noticed12. that instead of hands she had two artificial limbs.13. I really wanted14. to help her,15. but I had not taken my glasses with me that afternoon,16. so I apologised17. and continued18. walking,19. thinking the whole way about this miserable woman.

Simple past tense clauses 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18 foreground themain events in this personal story. Clauses 2, 3, 4, 9, 15 and 19 express back-ground information related to the main events. The past progressive clauses 2, 3and 19 illustrate the function of past progressive (i.e. focus on the internal incom-plete structure of the situation), and 4, 9 and 15 illustrate the past perfect function(i.e. establishing anteriority).

Modern Hebrew has a three-tense system (i.e. present, past and future(Berman, 1978), and aspect marking is lexical. Example 2 presents the Hebrewglossed translation of clauses 1–9 of the English story.

Example 2 Temporal dimensions of a personal story in Hebrew1. Ze kara beyom šiši baderex lešiur hitamlut

It happen (v, it, pasr) on day Friday on the way to lesson gym

‘It happened last Friday on my way to the gym lesson’


2. halaxti leatwalk+I (v, past) slowly(adv, aspect)‘I walked slowly’

3. vexašavti al mašehuand+think+I(v,past) about something

‘Thinking about something’

4. šekara li baavoda.that+happen(v,it, past) to me at work

‘ that had happened to me at work’5. pitom raiti iša.

Suddenly see+I (v,past) woman

‘Suddenly I met a woman’

6. šebiksa otiwho+ask+she (v, past) me

‘who asked me’

7. laazor lato help to her

‘to help her’8. laanod et haagilim šela.

to put on the earrings her

‘put on her earrings’

9. habakaša hayta muzara.The request be+it (v, past) strange.

‘The request was strange’

10. meolam lo bikšu mimeniNever (adv, aspect) no ask+they (v, past) me

‘I had never been asked’11. laasot davar kaze.

to do thing such

‘to do such a thing’

All the clauses in Example 2 are in the past tense. Clauses 5, 6, 7, and 8 fore-ground two of the main events. The other past tense clauses provide temporalbackground information. Progressive aspect is marked by an adverbial (‘leat’,‘slowly’, clause 2) which indicates that the situation is incomplete. Perfect aspectis marked by an adverb (‘meolam’, ‘never’ clause 10) which establishes a retro-spective view, or a flashback. In clause 4 the retrospective view is not markedexplicitly by lexical means, but it is understood from the context of the story.

The present study compared the effect of CMI and explicit L2-focusedmetalinguistic instruction on the acquisition of past perfect forms in English byadvanced L2 learners, native speakers of Hebrew. Bearing in mind thefacilitative effect attributed to CMI in the acquisition of difficult grammaticalstructures (Kupferberg & Olshtain, 1996a), we expected that CMI, which showscontrastively how Hebrew and English establish a retrospective view in apersonal story, would be more conducive to the acquisition of past perfect forms,than mere L2-focused metalinguistic input. We hypothesised that the experi-


mental group would comprehend and produce more past perfect forms incomparison with the control group.

Method

ParticipantsOur sample consisted of 59 women, attending the second year of a two-year

teacher-training programme in a college and a university located in centralIsrael. Most of the participants had already completed their BA in English Litera-ture, or Linguistics, and were in-service English teachers. Using the book ofrandom numbers, we allocated half of the college students and the universitystudents to the experimental (n=29) and control (n=30) groups, respectively.T-tests indicated comparable background variables such as age, English profi-ciency, other languages spoken, years of English study and teaching experience.Before the experiment started, both groups had studied narrative elements(Labov, 1972), including temporal dimensions expressed by past and presenttenses and progressive aspect. They did not study past perfect.

InstrumentsProficiency was measured by three tasks (i.e. writing, reading comprehension

and a cloze) administered to both groups a month before the experiment began.The other variables were measured via a self-reported background question-naire. The choice of narrative tasks for instruction and measurement was guidedby two assumptions: personal stories are ubiquitous in teachers’ discourse, andteachers tend to respond to narrative discourse by producing their own personalstories (Mattingly, 1991). In view of these assumptions, we expected that partici-pants’ motivation and involvement would be high.

The personal stories used for L2-focused instruction and measurement taskswere written by native speakers of English. The stories were edited by a profes-sional translator, a native speaker of American English. Subsequently, tworaters, native speakers of American English acquainted with narrative analysisbut not involved in this study, evaluated the appropriate use of past perfectforms in the stories (inter-rater reliability: r = 0.98). The raters and the translatorpointed out that past perfect clauses seemed natural in the written edited versionof the story, but could also be replaced by past tense forms.

Measurement and instruction were conducted via L2 narrative tasks becausethe narrative format creates appropriate (but not obligatory) and naturalcontexts for the use of past perfect. Appropriate natural context was defined as anarrative clause which enables the narrator to depart from the normal sequenceof the story-line to create a retrospective view on the complicating action.

Measurement was conducted via comprehension and production tasks whichmeasured the ability of the participants to comprehend and produce the targetform in personal stories. The comprehension tasks instructed the participants tocircle past perfect forms which established a retrospective view on past events.The production task measured the ability of participants to produce retrospec-tive backtracking from the story-line by means of past perfect forms. Participantswere instructed to write a story describing an unforgettable professional orpersonal experience. The instructions did not relate to background actions.


Participants’ scores were the ratio between the number of past perfect clausesand the total number of clauses in the story. This was a necessary step becausenarrators’ total number of clauses and background clauses often vary.

The comprehension and production tasks were successfully piloted with agroup of native speakers of English (N = 20) and advanced English learnerswhose native language is Hebrew (N = 20).The pilot showed that advancedlearners both comprehended and produced lexical past perfect and lexical andgrammatical past progressive, but avoided the production of grammatical pastperfect as anteriority markers.

ProcedureThe experiment was conducted in the course of five consecutive 45-minute

discourse analysis lessons taught in 1995–1996 in both institutions by the samelecturer. Measurements were conducted in the first (time 1) and fifth (time 2)lessons. Instruction and the experimental intervention took three lessons. Thequestionnaire, the comprehension and production tasks were administered intime 1. In time 2, only the production task was administered, because partici-pants were able to ‘comprehend’ all the past perfect forms in time 1 narrativetask.

Supplemental instruction was conducted in six stages. The experimentalintervention comprising MCI was supplied to the experimental group in stage 6and consisted of two tasks. The six stages are described below. In stage 1, partici-pants were asked to circle past perfect forms. In stage 2, they reviewed the form(i.e. auxiliary ‘have’ combined with past participle) and defined its function inthe story (i.e. establish a retrospective view along the story-line). In stage 3, theteacher told the class an unusual personal story in order to motivate the partici-pants to make their own narrative contribution. In stage 4, participants weredivided into groups of four or five, and they were instructed to ‘retrieve’ unusualpersonal episodes from memory and narrate them to other group members. Instage 5, participants chose the most unusual story. In stage 6, these unusualstories were told to the class and narrative elements and grammatical and lexicalaspect markers (including anteriority markers) were identified and discussed.

Stage 6 was conducted in two lessons. In the second lesson the experimentaland control groups in each class were separated, and each group met to completethe narration of the unusual stories chosen in stage 5. The experimental interven-tion was administered to the experimental group on this occasion. The experi-mental tasks (i.e. tasks 6a and 6b) were administered in a lockstep studentgrouping. The experimental participants were instructed to listen to the unusualstories and jot down clauses which express a retrospective view adopted from apast time point.

Task 6a, a translation task, instructed participants to translate the clauseswhich they had jotted down into Hebrew. In task 6b the lecturer first attemptedto elicit L1–L2 differences from the participants, and then she clearly summa-rised structural and functional differences via metalinguistic statements inEnglish. Table 1 defines the type of tasks which were assigned to the experi-mental and control groups.


Data analysisQualitative and quantitative data analysis of 118 personal stories (produced

by participants before and after the experiment at time 1 and 2) was conducted.Following Pica’s target-like use analysis (Pica, 1983, 1984), we requested twoEnglish teachers, native speakers of English, who were not involved in the studyitself, to detect past perfect forms in appropriate and ungrammatical contexts.Each story was assigned two scores (i.e. the number of appropriate and ungram-matical past perfect forms). Inter-rater reliability was calculated by correlationbetween the evaluation of the two raters. The reliability coefficient was very high(r = 0.98). Then, the ratio between the frequency of past perfect forms and thetotal number of clauses in each story was computed.

ResultsQualitative analysis showed that participants used past or past perfect forms

in appropriate contexts. No past perfect forms were supplied in ungrammaticalcontexts. Table 2 presents means and standard deviations of past perfect produc-tion at times 1 and 2.

In order to compare the two groups, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) withpast perfect production as the dependent variable was conducted. Past perfectproduction means at time 1 were the covariate.This was a necessary step because


Instruction Time (minutes)Experimental Control

1. Detecting anteriority markers in anarrative format

About 7 About 7

2. Form and function review About 6 About 63. Listening to the teacher’s story About 4 About 44. Group formation and task instruc-

tionsAbout 4 About 4

5. Group members tell unusual storiesand choose the most unusual one

About 20 About 20

6. Stories are told to the class. Narrativeand temporal elements are detectedand discussed

2 lessons 2 lessons

A translation task About 8 –MCI About 5 –

Table 1 The type and time allotment of instruction given to the experimental (n = 29)and control (n = 30) groups

Experimental ControlM SD M SDTime 1 1.57 2.50 0.75 1.30Time 2 3.64 3.46 1.34 1.76

Table 2 Past perfect production means and standard deviations at times 1 and 2 of theexperimental (n = 29) and control (n = 30) groups

the experimental group’s production mean at time 1 was higher than the controlgroup’s. Analyses of covariance were also conducted for other aspect clauses (i.e.lexical past perfect, and grammatical and lexical past progressive) with time 1production means as the covariate. Following Benferroni’s adjustment formultiple analyses, alpha level was set to 0.0125 because four ANCOVAs wereperformed. The results of the first ANCOVA are presented in Table 3. The otherthree ANCOVAs showed that there were no significant differences at the 0.05level between the means of the experimental and control groups.

Table 3 shows that the experimental group’s production mean of past perfectforms (see Table 2) was significantly higher than the control group’s, when theeffect of time 1 was controlled by the ANCOVA (see Table 3). Therefore, weconcluded that the experimental group produced more past perfect forms thanthe control group in time 2.

DiscussionThe results of the present study are interpreted as an indication that advanced

English learners, native speakers of Hebrew, benefited from MCI and improvedtheir production level. The control group’s production patterns in our study alsoshow gains, a finding which seems to weaken our claim. These gains can,however, be explained by the L2-focused instruction which both groupsreceived. Yet, the experimental group produced more anteriority markers attime 2. The production difference suggests that CMI concerning explicit differ-ences and similarities between the languages did, in fact, increase the productionlevel of a difficult grammatical structure. We use the term ‘difficult’ becausebefore the experiment, participants (i.e. English teachers and student teachers)were able to comprehend the form, but avoided production.

The present study did not measure long-term gains. However, in view of theresults of the present study and the former one (Kupferberg & Olshtain, 1996a),one could tentatively conclude that both intermediate and advanced learnersmay have benefited from the provision of MCI comprising structural and func-tional metalinguistic statements and improved their production levels of diffi-cult target language structures in written narrative discourse. Therefore, MCIcan be regarded as a ‘production facilitator’.

We interpret the results of the two studies as an indication that MCI suppliedvia metalinguistic statements and comprehension tasks induced salience whichdrew the learners’ attention to L1–L2 differences, made them notice the differ-ences (detect the MCI and ‘rehearse’ or activate them in short-term memory)(Robinson, 1995). The L1-L2 comparison did not result in loss of the detected


Source df MS FCovariate (time 1) 1 229.66 4.06*Group (G) 1 39.58 5.42*S within-group error 56 730

Note: S = subjects; p < 0.0125

Table 3 ANCOVA results for the past perfect production means

input (Robinson, 1997), but rather contributed to retention in short- termmemory. In the former study (Kupferberg & Olshtain, 1996a), the L1–L2 compar-ison may have resulted in the formulation of L2 rules, which were subsequentlystored in long-term memory.

It is possible that the advanced learners in the present study benefited fromCMI in a different way. They may have retrieved an L2 rule from long-termmemory, activated (or rehearsed) it in short-term memory (Robinson, 1995),reformulated it with the help of the explicit and facilitative metalinguisticcomponent provided by instruction, and then restored the rule (McLaughlin,1990) with the newly added function of grammatical anteriority markers withinthe narrativeformat. Future research could test this interpretation empirically bymeasuring long-term gains.

As for avoidance, evidence from both studies indicates that the definition ofavoidance should incorporate the comprehension level of learners. In the firststudy, intermediate ‘successful form recognizers’ were better ‘form producers’than ‘unsuccessful ones’. In the present study, advanced learners who were ableto comprehend the forms before the study had started, but avoided production,improved their production level. We tentatively conclude that in order to estab-lish that a learner avoids using an L2 form, one has to establish first that the formwas partially acquired (i.e. the learners were able to comprehend it).

The empirical evidence described in this article has practical implications.First, intermediate and advanced learners can benefit from contrastivemetalinguistic instruction of grammatical structures. This analytic componentdoes not replace experiential content-focused instruction (Allen et al., 1990), butshould be incorporated into the former as metalinguistic contrastive instruction.Finally, grammar instruction may benefit from the use of authentic texts (e.g.personal stories) in comparison with discrete item lists, at all stages of thegrammar lesson (Ur, 1988).

AcknowledgmentThis study was supported by a grant provided by the Committee for the

Advancement of Research at Levinsky College of Education. I extend my appre-ciation to Izhak Gilat, Alex Grossu, Yael Katzir and Hayuta Regev for theirconstructive comments on earlier versions of this article.

CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Dr Irit Kupferberg, The English

Department, Levinsky College of Education, P.O.B 48130, Tel Aviv, 61480, Israel([email protected]).

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